Pitso rues lapse of focus in Guinea
Downs coach warned defence about Camara
One point on the road is better than none‚ said Pitso Mosimane as he bemoaned his Mamelodi Sundowns side giving up a lead away at Horoya of Guinea in Conakry on Tuesday.
But Mosimane also hailed Sundowns’ second half comeback in the 2-2 draw in their CAF Champions League encounter.
“I’m happy‚” he told the postmatch press conference at the Stade 28 Septembre, a multipurpose stadium in Conakry, before changing his mind.
“Actually‚ I’m a little bit happy because we were 2-1 up and my centre-back left the most important player (Horoya central defender Aboubacar Camara) alone on set-pieces.
“We all know he is the only player who scores with the head. My player left him. But it’s football,” he said.
It was another torturous defensive performance from Soumahoro Bangaly‚ whose mistakes in the friendly against Barcelona last week were embarrassing‚ and he was again at fault as Camara scored in the 83rd minute to equalise after Sundowns had come from a goal down to go 2-1 ahead.
Soumaharo was playing again in the place of Ricardo Nascimento‚ left behind in South Africa because of a respiratory tract infection.
Sundowns were largely outplayed and should have been behind by the half-time break.
But Horoya only opened the scoring six minutes into the second half through Mandela Ocansey and then fell asleep as Sundowns suddenly sprung to life and wrestled control of a game played on a poor-quality pitch and in sticky-hot and humid conditions.
“What I said before the match is exactly what happened‚” Mosimane said.
“We needed to respect our opponent‚ we need to be very careful.
“Exactly the same players I mentioned before – Mandela‚ (Ibrahim Sory) Sankhon and the two midfielders – caused a bit of a problem for us in the first half.
“But I think it was a game of two halves. We woke up very late‚ we were asleep‚” the Sundowns coach said.